If you follow me on Twitter, then you know that over the past few weeks, I have been having issues with my hosting provider, Media Temple. They have been great to me for a long time, so I am not going to bash them, but I did decide to leave them after 2 years of service. As you can probably imagine, hosting is very important to me and my company. I own an Atlanta Web Design company called Collective Core, and currently host around 30 different domains.

The Problem

A few months ago, I received an email from one of my clients notifying me that their email address was being flagged as spam on all major email services, i.e. Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live. I did some research and found that every domain I hosted was having this problem. I checked to make sure they had not been blacklisted for spamming, and I found that they had not, in fact this client had only sent about 40 emails from that domain. I proceeded to submit a support request with Media Temple to see what they thought could be the problem.

Media Temple support instructed me to add some information to the domain zone file which might help these emails to get through major spa filters. This did not help at all. All emails were still being received as spam. I submitted a second support request asking to change IP addresses of my server. I figured since the problem effected all my domains, it could be a server issue. They filled my request and I switched all my stuff over to a new IP address. Again, this didn’t fix anything. Next, I turned to Google to see if I could figure out the problem, and I searched and searched and searched with no luck. Finally, I decided to submit a third support request and ask for a senior level tech support member, I was able to get in touch with someone higher up and we discussed my problem. He agreed to look into my problem further and get back to me in a few days. Well, he got back to me and told me that there was nothing further Media Temple could do.

At this point, I had not other option but to look else where for hosting in hopes that my problem is solved with a new hosting provider.

Enter Host Gator

I asked around on Twitter, and did some Googling to find a host that is reliable and reasonably priced. My friends over at 45royle (@45royale) suggested Host Gator to me. I checked them out and they seemed to be pretty solid and reasonably priced hosting provider. So I decided to give them a try.

I switched over 1 domain and sent some test emails, and guess what, they were received just fine! Problem solved, Yay! Over the next few weeks I spent hours and hours moving over files, databases, email accounts, and settings. I have been with Host Gator now for 3 weeks, and I am completely happy. Their support staff is great, and support is offered instantly over chat or phone!

If you all are looking for a great web host, check out Host Gator. Host Gator is an established company with over 200k accounts, reasonable prices and great support options.